Potus ???

[Johnsond]

1 hour ago, Big J said:

 

But as I said earlier, storage has to be looked at. Ideally, each house should be equipped with battery storage to allow for charging during periods of high production or low demand.

😳😳That’s a lot of batteries J, we can’t according to Labour afford to help pensioners never mind put a never ending supply of batteries into millions of homes. Mind you imagine the potential corporate profits on that boat. 
What happens when they need replacement??. 
Or be sensible build a rake of nuclear capacity and stick possibly a few wind farms over the horizon not on land with all the associated OH lines, pylons and substations scarring the countryside. 

Edited 4 hours ago by Johnsond

[GarethM]

2 minutes ago, Big J said:

The UK is of course an island, and therefore tidal is a 100% reliable power source.

 

But as I said earlier, storage has to be looked at. Ideally, each house should be equipped with battery storage to allow for charging during periods of high production or low demand. 

 

Most solar installations here now include a battery. 10-15% of the houses in our village have solar, I'd estimate.

Can't have tidal, look at the times they've tried to do it. Cardiff, Bristol channel, menai all rejected and those ones up at Scarpa keep breaking and failing.

 

Solar is fine even with a lead acid setup if it powers some things, but it's just more boondoggle with lithium or similar chemistry.

 

Create more waste to "recycle", providing no government money is used, the whole thing thing disappears and the snake oil salesman go quiet.

[Johnsond]

2 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

This is probably also another case of "Good technology, applied badly by the UK".

 

The National Grid is in chronic need of upgrade. The energy infrastructure as a whole really. It, like so many other things, comes down to planning reform.

Spoken like a man living in Sweden not North East of Scotland. 
SSEN are lobbying big time  for planning reform, 🤔you think that’s for the good of humanity or the shareholders at the end of the day. 

[GarethM]

4 minutes ago, Big J said:

 

This is probably also another case of "Good technology, applied badly by the UK".

 

The National Grid is in chronic need of upgrade. The energy infrastructure as a whole really. It, like so many other things, comes down to planning reform.

The grid as it was was designed for a time when we produced and used masses more power.

 

Obviously city infrastructure is a different argument as it'd old and need better distribution.

 

The total network capacity has gone down, the requirements for the upgrade is to cope with the occasional glut of wind without burning up the pylon wires and for when we buy in power from France/Germany/Denmark/Norway and also to Ireland etc.

[Steven P]

Tidal is tricky - OK we have a large coast but it is also a bit aggressive to infrastructure (particularly moving parts). Get the reliability in there and we are good to go, north of Scotland has a lot of potential. There is an option for tidal on some rivers in the West like the Severn and Mersey - away from the actual coast and a bit more protected.

 

Whatever the UK does though, the network is creaking a bit and needs upgrading, new generation and distribution network. Might upset a few NIMBYs along the way (flip side, the redundant power stations and pylons that are taken down for example will make an equal and opposite amount of happy people to those getting narky).

 

Same as in the US, their network isn't far off rolling blackouts either - only takes a small nudge to create problems, old systems and networks that need 21st century designs and distribution to where the power is needed now (and not 70 years ago). Trumps January actions have in the background been very interested in power (and I don't mean political power) - Argentina with Musks chainsaw, Ukraine with their oil and Lithium and Greenland potential for oil and rare minerals.

[GarethM]

The grids are creaking due to the renewables, it's the surge not the base load from certain areas for example Scotland or out at sea.

 

Power grids barely need to change, without going into details. High voltage transmission from a stable nuclear grid supply looses something laughably small a few %.

 

All these DC interconnections loose a fantastic amount due to it being DC.

 

Best way to describe it is Christmas lights, everything works great until you plug a toaster in the end and burn out the wire for that Christmas day meal.

[Johnsond]

1 hour ago, Steven P said:

Tidal is tricky - OK we have a large coast but it is also a bit aggressive to infrastructure (particularly moving parts). Get the reliability in there and we are good to go, north of Scotland has a lot of potential

You spent any time up Pentland Firth SP or indeed the Severn Estuary?? Tidal is tricky 😂
“ a bit aggressive to infrastructure and moving parts” surely the understatement of the day. 
Maybe if you shared with the Forum your occupation or background it would help somewhat. 

[Steven P]

If we had a predictable stable baseload then yes, the power grid could probably cope... if the generation is where it is located currently... but to transition away from an oil based system and ahead of the 30 years for new nuclear builds then the generation is going to be distributed where the power is.. and to cope the creaky distribution network needs - and indeed is being - upgraded to cope.. or we put in battery storage at the point of generation to easy the supply side of things.

 

Been a while since I did any course on transmission and distribution, they were concerned with AC, that's what was being installed at the time. HVDC is the flavour of the month for long distances though, must be a technical improvement over AC, I was assuming losses would be less - a bit more in the infrastructure costs but winning with losses

[GarethM]

HVDC is used to provide a degree of frequency isolation, regardless of any technical Innovations it's just an old technology with a new name and a higher voltage.

 

You've probably never heard of the current wars at the turn of the century, good few books about the subject and Nikola?.

 

That's why we have AC as pushing a DC current through a pipe regardless of its diameter gets harder and harder the longer the pipe.

 

AC doesn't really have that limitation except mostly heat loss.

 

Batteries are just a boondoggle, minutes of storage at best. They closed fiddlers ferry and kept the turbo alternator as a glorified flywheel to balance the renewables and charged a horrendous amount per minute the other month!.

[Steven P]

Ahh, yes, where they electrocuted the elephant... 

 

 

I've got to pop out, back in later, but I think (despite digressing from rightly knocking Trump) we are agreeing the problem is how to get the power from A to B, but like the rest of the world not quite sure how to balance the load to make it work? Problem of what to do after generation still exists, what to do once the wind blows too much? (and if we 2 can work that out faultlessly then this time next year we'll be millionaires!)